A Resting Place
by Tinkabelle21
Summary: This is a sad fiction, warning charector death, when Will goes to find Jack Sparrow for the last time.


This is a sad bit of fiction I wrote last night. It was only meant to be about a thousand words. but well. Disclaimer: Disney owns all, except the song that Ana-Marie sings in this story is Cardiff Rose a.k.a. Jolly Roger Written by Roger MacGuin.  
  
Will stepped of the boat; his eyes taking in the dust and the squalor of the town with the same stern resolve that they took in everything. The houses were shanties, the streets just dirt tracks in most places. Boys on the street, their skin the colour of the earth around them, watched Will with a awed silence, their white eyes hungry. The woman watched him through window slates, and from balconies, their faces drawn. The town was quiet, and Will felt like even the creak of his boots was too loud.  
  
To think this was the last resting place of Captain Jack Sparrow.  
  
Here, in this pitiable town, Will felt out of place. His adopted swagger, his charm and his anxiously cared for swords, which back home made him feel like the pirate he longed to be, seemed childish. Under the bright light of the heated sun, all this, his stupid hat and his stupid attitude, Will was scrutinized.  
  
The boys reached out to touch his feather as he walked past, and he felt ashamed.  
  
Will took a left turn, out of the blinding sun and the silent scrutiny, into the calming shade. He leant against a wall, trying to pull himself together, pushing his fingers against his eyes so all he could see was the black of his eyelids. He patted his pockets, pulling out a smoke, and lit it with shaking hands. He took only a few puffs before dropping it, scuffing his expensive boots over it to put it out. He's promised Elizabeth he'd quit.  
  
He thought of Elizabeth's face, so calm and serene. Her standing in their kitchen, in their new home, her growing belly covered in a white apron, flour on her forehead, the smell of cooking pie in the oven. He remembered twirling her around, dancing her out onto the balcony, were they'd embraced, the flawless blue ocean behind them. Will thought longingly of being in her arms again.  
  
He shook his head, trying to refocus, asking again for directions from one of the idle boys on the street. White man. Pirate. Those were all the description he'd had to give for Jack, though he could have given a million more. Like how he walked, how two of his teeth were gold capped, how he wore more eyeliner then any god-fearing man should. But no, Jack had been reduced to those three words.  
  
The hut was out of town; Will had to get a guide to show him. A trail ran along a sandy beach, and back into the trees. Will was sweating, picking his way through the branches of the low trees in the stifling heat, by the time they reached the clearing with the hut. He pressed a coin into the guides palm wordlessly.  
  
It was white washed, but that was about all it had going for it. No chimney, no curtains on the windows. It had none of Jack's flamboyancy. Will turned; gazing back over the hill he climbed, to the view of the sea.  
  
Ah Jack, Will thought. You said all you needed was the sea. I should have known.  
  
Will watched soundlessly as Ana-Marie emerged, a rough skirt wrapped around her thinned body. A grey scarf was tied around her head, the sweat dripping off her. She carried a bucket, emptying out the contents of in the trees.  
  
She stopped dead at the sight of Will.  
  
"What are you doing here?" She asked dumbfounded.  
  
"I came to visit an old friend." Will answered calmly. She swayed, looking close to fainting. Will darted forward, grabbing the bucket of her. "Here, let me take that for you." Ana-Marie let him, her expression a mixture of disbelief and sadness. She crossed her arms across her chest.  
  
"He's very different." She said quietly.  
  
"I know he is." Will replied, placing the bucket carefully by the wall of the house. "Is he inside? Can I see him?"  
  
"He didn't want you to see him this way." Ana-Marie stated, ignoring his questions. She licked her dried lips, glancing over her shoulder at the house. Will nodded gravely.  
  
"I had to come." Will said pompously with a courage he didn't feel. Maybe he didn't want to see Jack like this, reduced to this. Ana-Marie nodded resignedly.  
  
"Come on in then, but I warn you, he's changed a great deal." She opened the flap to the hut, ushering Will in after her.  
  
The first thing that hit Will was the heat. All the windows were tightly closed, and there was little fresh air inside the one-roomed hut. A pot boiled on the fireplace, the steam rose from it filling the room with the scent of spices. A smell that barely covered the festering, sick smell that also lay heavy in the room.  
  
Ana-Marie sat on a stool by the fire, averting her eyes from Will.  
  
On a bed in one corner, lay the remains of the infamous Jack Sparrow, menace of the high seas. His beard had been shaven off, his face clear of its eye makeup, his hair washed and matted with sweat around his head. His lips were parched, cracking and bloodless.  
  
Will forced himself to look further down, away from the muscular arm with all its tattoos, and down to were the outline of his body faltered, and the sheet's spoke clearly of what was missed. Where Jack Sparrows lets should be was just empty space.  
  
"Jack?" Will said cautiously, moving closer to the pallet. Jack turned his head, his eyes misty with pain. He sighed when he saw will, closing his eyes.  
  
"Don't look kid." Jack said, coughing slightly. He didn't open his eyes again, too proud to bear seeing the distress of Will's face. Will sat down by the head of the bed, his hands loosely by his side. He wanted to take Jack's hand as Elizabeth would have done if she were here, to place a cold towel on his head, to inspire him with hopeful words.  
  
But this was a place where even the naïve find it hard to hope.  
  
"Don't say it, Will. I know this is the end of the road for old Captain Jack Sparrow. Not the ending I had planned mind you, but an ending all the same." Jack said wearily, his lips barely moving.  
  
"Jack, what are you doing here? I could take you back to Port Royal, you could live with me and Elizabeth, you could." Will faltered.  
  
"I could what? There's no life for a legless pirate, not when you're legless in the not so fun, rum less way." Jack wheezed, coughing again. Will bowed his head, letting himself smile. "No, and the fevers got me now anyway."  
  
Will felt like crying at the acceptance in Jack's voice. Where was the man who had fought for ten years to recover the pearl? Who's carried around one shot, so he could kill the man who's robbed him? Who'd become the Bain of the navy after he'd been reinstated as Captain?  
  
"Will, how's Elizabeth? Is recovering from," Jack broke of again, a coughing fit racking his body. Will pretended not to notice. Jack was too proud, too proud for pity.  
  
"After the miscarriage? Yes she'd fine. Riding and cussing and sword fighting, the latter two which I'm blaming you for." Will said warmly, staring at his hands. "Of course she blames the miscarriage on those corsets. Refuses to wear them now. But she loves it, loves shocking the town by marrying a lowly black smith and a pirate, by ignoring her fathers opinions. I swear, if I did stop her, she'd be off to join a pirate ship herself." Will laughed, almost forgetting where he was. He could almost imagine it was just the two of them, catching up and talking about old times in a bar in Tortugua.  
  
He glanced up as Ana-Marie stood over him.  
  
"You best go outside now. Jack needs to rest, and he needs to have some of this broth." Ana-Marie said curtly. Will nodded, rising.  
  
"She's trying to kill me with this broth." Jack joked.  
  
"I'll be back, Jack," He said jokingly from the door, lifting the flap to leave. Ana-Marie was bending over Jack, her hair coming loose from her pony tail, raising a spoon to his lips.  
  
"What are you saying about my broth Jack?" She whispered in a voice Will had never heard her use before, tucking a stray hair behind Jack's ear. Then she began to hum softly. "The sun came up over the Spanish Sea, Our homeland far behind us, Being hunted by the king´s navy, I´m sure he´ll never find us,"  
  
Jack coughed again, Ana-Marie pausing, her voice surprisingly sweat in the damp air. Will turned away, embarrassed by the intimacy and the privilege of seeing this scene.  
  
"Pull away, me lads of the Cardiff Rose and hoist the Jolly Roger, We pulled her into the leeward wind, And we made for the Caribbean," Ana-Marie sang, her voice trailing out of the hut, and Will stood outside, watching the sea.  
  
* * * * * * * * *  
  
Eventually she emerged, wiping worn hands on her skirt.  
  
"He's sleeping now." She said quietly, standing a few feets behind him. Will whirled around, anger glinting in his eyes but trying to keep his outraged words low.  
  
"How can you do this to him?" Will asked passionately.  
  
"Do what?" Ana-Marie replied, running her hand across her forehead.  
  
"Do this." Will gestured around at the surroundings, the dilapidated hut. "He should have the best medical treatment, he should be in a civilised town, where people can look after him."  
  
"Is that what you want Will?" She asked, moving away from him slightly.  
  
"Yes, I want to take him home with me, cure him. He can still live twenty years, or he could have, if you hadn't let the fever get as bad as it has." Will spluttered, removing his hand, his fingers fiddling with the feather.  
  
"Ask yourself, do you think that's what Jack would want?" Ana-Marie asked softly. "I love Jack and I would do anything for him, but this is what he asked me to do." She jutted out her chin, her eyes a mixture of pity and compassion for the boy in front of her, who knew so little about how the world works, and about the complex man who lay inside the hut, with fever stripping his bones.  
  
"Jack wouldn't have wanted to die here." Will said defiantly, clinging to the memory in his mind of the comical, swashbuckling pirate who had waltzed into his blacksmith and his life five years ago.  
  
"Will, what use is there, for a pirate with no legs?" Ana-Marie voiced mildly. "Don't ask me to question the chose I made when I agreed to bringing him here. Please Will."  
  
"There has to be another way. He can't just die." Will shook his head, but the resolve in his eyes faltered somewhat.  
  
"We all die some time. He's a pirate. We're a breed that doesn't make it to old age." Ana-Marie said with sad pride. She looked tired, dark circles under her eyes and frown lines worn around her face.  
  
"How can you watch him, wither away in there." Will asked finally.  
  
"Because when he asked me to finish him, I refused." She said with a lonely weariness.  
  
"Finish him?" Will found himself echoing, astonished by the change in Ana- Marie also. How could five years change her, change them both so much?  
  
"He asked me to slit his throat, Will." Ana-Marie said angrily. "Is that what you want to hear? That Jack Sparrow begged me to slit his throat after he lost his legs, after we refused to abandon him. That he would not eat or drink for nearly five days, that he would not travel on his pearl, nor touch his rum nor me." She said few words in a choked voice, her eyes brimming with tears she had refused to let fall in those long days while Jack lay unconscious, close to death.  
  
Will watched her silently, praying to the lord that he would never experience what this girl had, what Jack had. Praying that Elizabeth never was in such danger, that he was never in the situation where he had to choose whether she lived or died. The miscarriage, the battle with Barbossa, they were all things he couldn't control. Thing's he'd hated and fought against with every bit of his soul, but things he couldn't control.  
  
But this girl had had her lover ask her to kill him.  
  
It was something he hoped he never had to face.  
  
* * * * * * * * * *  
  
"How longs he got?" Will asked. The sun was setting now, and the two of them had walked down to the beach. Jack had woken three or four times during the day, calling out in pain. Only twice he had been able to speak, the other times he was so lost in the fever that he could neither recognise Will nor Ana-Marie.  
  
"I don't know. A couple of days. A week if he's lucky. His body's reacting against the loss of his legs, and him not eating, it's not helping." She said quietly. "I hate being away from him, but I come down here for the sunset, for last bit of hours before night comes." She buried her hands in the soft white sand, drawing meaningless patterns.  
  
"Why here? Why did he ask you to bring him here?" Will asked, scanning the horizon.  
  
"This is where I was born. I left here with my da, and when he died, I eventually fell into piracy. But this was home, and I told Jack about it. He never had a real home, and I think he took comfort in sharing mine."  
  
"What was his childhood like?" Will ventured, shooting her a sly look. "Has he told you?"  
  
"Jack's never was one for telling stories." Ana-Marie said, avoiding his question. What had passed between them, to the full extend that Ana- Marie had known Jack, his fears and the troubles of his past, she would not tell. It was not her story to tell.  
  
The silence grew, the waves lapping at the land hungrily.  
  
"You know, he asked me not to tell you, not to write. We made the whole ship swear it actually, not to breath a word to you." She said with her old sharpness. "I'm actually rather curious as to how you found out."  
  
"He stopped writing. Did you know we wrote to one another?" Ana-Marie shook her head. "Not all the time, one every month or so, when I had the time. But Jack always wrote back straight after I sent him a letter. When he stoped writing, I was worried. Then someone told me that the Pearl had a new Captain, and I knew Jack would never give it up voluntarily. So I left,"  
  
William paused, remembering the argument he'd had with Elizabeth, while she tried to persuade him to let her come with him. But she was five months pregnant, and he couldn't bear to let her sail. Her father had helped Will get away; inviting Elizabeth to the mansion for dinner, while Will left her a long letter goodbye.  
  
"I found Gibbs captaining the Pearl, and he told me where Jack was. He wouldn't tell me why though." Will paused again. "How did he lose his legs?" Ana-Marie jolted at those words, a shadow crossing her face.  
  
"We were raiding a settlement, something Jack's hated to do ever after you two, and we were setting fire to the houses, and one of them, it just collapsed all around him. We thought at the time that we were lucky to get him out alive. His legs were completely shot; they'd been crushed under a rafter. By the time we got him to a doctor, they had to be removed." She told haltingly.  
  
"And then, he, gave up?" Will asked, finishing her tale awkwardly.  
  
"Aye. It was like the man I'd known had been extinguished." She stood up briskly, brushing the sand of her dress. "Come on, I don't like to leave him alone."  
  
Jack Sparrow, Captain of the Black Pearl, menace of the high seas died three days later. William held his hand, watching the pirates brow furrowed with pain, watching the contortions wreck his body, and watching him finally still. Ana-Marie wept softly, her shoulders shaking, and Will, though he wanted to comfort her, found he couldn't remove his eyes form the body that had once been Jack Sparrow.  
  
They carried his body to the beach, constructing a bonfire. When the tide came it, the waves would carry the ashes back to the ocean, Sparrow's one true love.  
  
Ana-Marie kissed Jack's smooth pale cheek, pressing his beads from his beard into his hand, adjusting his hat. She had painted the dark black lines around his eyes that he had worn in life and he looked pale and old.  
  
His guns, however, she kept herself.  
  
Will knew there were words that he should say over the body of this great fallen man, but they would not come.  
  
"A good man, and a good pirate." He said simply.  
  
As they lit the flames, Ana-Marie started to sing, her voice mixing with the sound of the waves and the sea gulls to serve as a final lament for the great Jack Sparrow.  
  
"Pull away, me lads of the Cardiff Rose and hoist the Jolly Roger  
  
We pulled her into the leeward wind,  
  
And we made for the Caribbean  
  
For thoughts of what it might have been  
  
Destroys a human being.  
  
But thoughts about the Spaniard´s gold  
  
And learning to desire it,  
  
Could make a man so rash and bold,  
  
He´ll soon become a pirate.  
  
Pull away, me lads of the Cardiff Rose and hoist the Jolly Roger  
  
A gleam it came in our Captains eye,  
  
As he spied an english clipper  
  
Now there´s many a day on the Spanish Main  
  
But none I hold so dear,  
  
As that happy day I first became  
  
A scurvy buccaneer."  
  
Her voice rose over the ocean, calling out to her lost love, and it seemed to will he could hear Jack Sparrow singing also, his crude voice mixed with the breathe of the ocean.  
  
"It's a pirates life for me." 


End file.
